After enduring a severe and tedious imprisonment of nineteen months, he was at length set at liberty, in the month of February, 1549, according to the modern com putation; and immediately repaired to England, where he was immediately noticed by the English council, and sent down as a Protestant preacher to Berwick. During the two years that he continued in this place, he gained nume rous converts from the errors of Popery ; and triumphant ly maintained, before Bishop Tonstal of Durham, his charge of idolatry against the sacrifice of the mass. In 1551, he was removed to Newcastle ; and, about the end of the same year, was appointed by the privy council one of king Ed ward's chaplains in ordinary. About this time he was con sulted respecting the Book of Common Prayer, which was undergoing a revisal ; and was employed also in revising the Articles of Religion, previously to their ratification by parliament. In this commission he had the influence to procure an important change in the communion office, by completely excluding the notion of the corporeal presence of Christ in the sacrament, and guarding against the adora tion of the elements, which was so much countenanced by the practice of kneeling at their reception. About the end of the year 1552, he was summoned to London, in conse quence of certain charges against him by the popish fac tion; but was honourably acquitted by the council, and em ployed to preach before the court. He acquired much fa vour with the young king, who first procured for him a presentation to the vacant living of All-Hallows, in the city, and afterwards, with the concurrence of the privy council, offered him a bishopric ; but he declined both of these pro motions, in consequence of his disapproval of many points in the worship and government of the English church. After the accession of Mary, he continued to preach for some time in the southern counties ; but was at length re duced to the necessity of seeking safety by flight ; and, hav ing procured a vessel through the good offices of his friends, he landed at Dieppe, on the 28th of January, 1554. A short time before his departure from England, he mar ried Miss Margery Bowes, a young lady of honourable fa mily, to whom he had become attached during his first re sidence at Berwick, but whom he was obliged to leave be hind him in that city, with her mother.
One of his first cares, after arriving at Dieppe, was to employ his pen in writing suitable advices to those, whom he could no longer instruct by his sermons or conversa tion ; and, with this view, he transmitted to England a prac tical exposition of the sixth psalm, and a long letter ad dressed to his former hearers in London, and other parts of the kingdom. He then travelled through France towards Switzerland, without any settled plans or prospects ; and spent some time in conferring with the most eminent di vines of the Helvetic churches, by whom he was treated with the most affectionate hospitality. After a short visit to Dieppe, for the purpose of receiving information from England, he repaired to Geneva, where he speedily formed an intimate friendship with Calvin, and fixed his ordinary residence during the continuance of his exile. About the end of the year, he published his Admonitions to Englund ; and, though now nearly 50 years of age, applied himself to the study of the Hebrew language, which he had not pre viously enjoyed any opportunity of acquiring. While thus engaged in the prosecution of his studies at Geneva, and supported principally by remittances from his friends in England and Scotland, he was invited to become one of the pastors of a congregation of English refugees in Frank fort on the Maine, who had been permitted to use the place of worship allotted to the French Protestants in that city, upon condition of their conforming, as much as possible, to the mode of worship used by the French reformers. But
a short time after his settlement in that office, Dr. Cox, who had been preceptor to Edward VI. having arrived at Frankfort with some other English exiles, they insisted upon introducing their own liturgy into the congregation ; and employed such crafty machinations to render our re former obnoxious to the German government, that he was obliged again to seek a refuge in Geneva. Soon after his return, he received such information from Scotland, as en couraged him to revisit his native country, where he land ed in the month of August, 1555 ; and, after remaining some time with his wife and her mother at Berwick, he set out secretly to visit the Protestants in Edinburgh. Here he found a number of the reformers assembled from differ ent parts of the country, with whom he continued longer than he had intended, preaching in a private house to suc cessive assemblies with little intermission. He particular-. ly exerted himself, and not without success, to accomplish a formal separation from the Popish church, by persuading the reformers to abstain from attendance on its public rites, to which they had hitherto conformed. He accompanied several of the Protestant gentlemen to their country resi dences, where he preached almost daily to the neighbour ing nobility and gentry ; and was, particularly, the guest of Sir James Sandilands, at Calder House—of the Earl of Glencairn, at Finlayston—and of Erskine of Dun, in An gus-shire ; where the greater part of the gentlemen of the Mearns made profession of the reformed religion, and en tered into a mutual bond, or covenant, for its furtherance and support. In consequence of these proceedings, he was summoned to appear before a convention of the clergy at Edinburgh ; whither he repaired, before the day accompanied by Erskine of Dun, and several other friends of distinction ; but his adversaries, afraid to encounter a meeting which they did not expect he would dare to give them, deserted the diet, and left him undisturbed in his daily instructions to large audiences, in the midst of the city. While lie was thus employed in Scotland, he re ceived letters from the English congregation at Geneva, urging him to become one of their pastors ; and, alter vi siting his Protestant friends in the different places where lie had preached, he repaired to that place, with his wife and mother-in-law, in the month of July, 1556.
Here he spent two of the most peaceful' y of his life ; and enjoyed all the comforts of literary society, doniestIs happiness, and ministerial success. All these personal ad vantages he shelved himself ready to forsake, upon receiv ing encouraging letters from Scotland ; and actually set out, in the autumn of 1557, on his way to that country, when he was met on his journey by such unfavourable ac counts, as determined him to remain some time longer on the continent. By his letters, however, and various publica tions, transmitted to his native country, he greatly contri buted to encourage his friends, and to extend the reformed opinions ; and, about the end of the year 1558, he received another and more animating invitation from the Protestant lords of Scotland, to join them in their struggle for the re ligious liberties of the nation. In the beginning of the fol lowing year, our reformer took leave of Geneva for the last time ; and, having spent some time in France, landed at Leith on the 2d of May.